It is well known that software piracy is a large commercial problem. According to a recent study by the Business Software Alliance, www.bsa.org, the computer industry loses $11 billion annually to piracy, with 40 percent of all software programs pirated. Software piracy is a crime that traditional legal and technical methods to a large extent fail to prevent, primarily due to the low cost of the crime and the inherent impossibility of preventing data copying.
One conventional approach to protecting against piracy is to require users to register their software programs. An example of this approach is implemented by the Sheriff Software Development Kit, www.sheriff-software.com. However, this approach only protects software that has not been manipulated by a pirate, and therefore is directed more towards preventing copying between friends than professional piracy.
It is also known to utilize other types of interaction between users and distributors in order to protect against piracy. There are a number of different commercial products that use these types of interaction. One such product, Microsoft Clip Art Gallery Live, cgl.microsoft.com/clipgallerylive, allows only registered users to access a large repository of clip art. The distributor can then verify that the access frequencies for each user remain at a reasonable level, thereby discouraging massive cloning of the accessing software.
Traditionally, and independent of the above-noted piracy concerns, users generally want to have their software updated, e.g., in order to get rid of known bugs, to add security patches, to add new functionality, and to keep their software compatible with other programs. Numerous techniques for software updating are known in the art. For example, one commercial product, McAfee Secure Cast/Active Shield, www.McAfee.com, initially provides users with a free virus detecting program and a limited number of free updates, but makes subsequent updates available only by paid subscription. In many cases, updates to software are done on roughly an annual basis, as there is not much need for more frequent updates, and as the cost and inconvenience of more frequent updates is substantial using conventional updating techniques.
The above-mentioned updating techniques have generally not been applied in a manner specifically designed to discourage software piracy. Furthermore, as previously noted, existing techniques for discouraging software piracy are inadequate. A need therefore remains in the art for a more efficient and effective approach to discouraging software piracy.